


siúil, a rún

by Kells



Series: AAUs for fun and flexibility [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: AAU, Alternate Universe, Cold War, F/M, Female Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1308181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kells/pseuds/Kells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone except Tony Stark calls Agent Stevens 'the Widow.' The more time he spends in her company, the more junior agent Clint Barton doubts the accuracy of that designation. What he doesn't expect is how the Winter Soldier plays into this conundrum.<br/>(or: I woke them up together because I wanted that for them, but there are other ways! here, have an alternate future. continuity wise: follows from Chapter 15 of We're in this War Now, waking them up 20-30 years earlier than they do otherwise)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for this to work we have to assume either that this is happening in the 1980s so everyone is older than they will be in the usual verse.
> 
> NOW WITH EXTREMELY LOVELY ILLUSTRATIONS!!! I especially love Bucky (this is always true though) and the action!Stephs. Plus also Tasha's flicky hair and Tony's what-why : ( face.
> 
> [Kells' Stephanie Barnes](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/art/Kells-Stephanie-Barnes-473508908) by [UchinanchuDuckie](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)  
> [Kell's Barnes Fixed up](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/art/Kell-s-Barnes-Fixed-up-474255779) by [UchinanchuDuckie](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)  
> [Kells' Steph Again](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/art/Kells-Steph-Again-475937054) by [UchinanchuDuckie](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)  
> [Kells' Tony, Clint, and Natasha - Recolored](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/art/Kells-Tony-Clint-and-Natasha-Recolored-474687408) by [UchinanchuDuckie](http://uchinanchuduckie.deviantart.com/) on [deviantART](http://www.deviantart.com)  
> I hope people will go tell this lovely UchinanchuDuckie that these are adorable and that she is a clever duck(ie) because they are! and she is! that is all.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Agent Barton plays with someone else's toys and wins an accidental mentor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the whole notion of an AAU brings me such joy teehee.  
> just a break from sweetness and light in the Happy Irish Universe because …Winter Soldier, man.  
> but, as always, it's different with Steph.  
> I hope someone somewhere finds this fun? I find it fun.

"Barton," Agent Stevens barked, "What do you think you're doing with that?"

As Clint turned away from the mirror where he'd been admiring his own reflection, he wondered if he really was going to end his short-lived career guiltily clutching a replica of Captain Barnes' shield. It would have to be Maria Stevens who had caught him out. Everyone knew she was the coldest bitch at SHIELD, faster than Fury with a gun in her hand and twice as likely as Tony Stark to reduce a grown man to tears for mildly annoying her. Every team SHIELD had established since she'd joined had all but begged for her involvement, but Agent Stevens, it seemed, worked alone. In fact she seemed to do everything alone- the senior agents referred to her as 'the Widow,' but Clint still wasn't sure why. As far as he knew, no one had ever managed to verify the rumour that Stevens had lost her husband on some early mission, but it would explain a lot of things. Everyone who'd seen her on the shooting range, though, knew they'd never ask; they also wondered if 'widow' might just be short for 'widow-maker.'

"I'm sorry," Clint muttered. "I just wanted to-"

"You look like you're holding a cake tray," she interrupted. Instead of snatching it off him, Stevens came over and adjusted the straps on Clint's arm as if she did it all the time. "Try it like that."

Suddenly, it felt a lot more like he was holding a real weapon rather than an awkward piece of furniture.

"Awesome," Clint breathed.

Stevens nodded and turned to go back the way she'd come.

"Wait," Clint cried impulsively. "Please. Ma'am."

She paused where she stood, pulling her dark hair into a neat twist while she waited for him to explain. 

"Why aren't you making me put it back?" he asked inanely. To his surprise, the Widow chose not to leave in disgust. She tilted her head at him, considering, and then shrugged.

"It's not even the real one. And he never had a problem sharing that thing."

Clint, hardly daring to believe that anyone, let alone the reclusive Agent Stevens, actually wanted to talk to him about Captain James Barnes, pushed his luck.

"Just with his wife, though. Not with any old kid who wanted to try it out."

She shrugged like it didn't make much difference from her point of view.

"He let Monty Falsworth have it during their last run- went up against the Red Skull without it and everything."

"Because his wife was on the ground," Clint argued. "His whole strategy was based around keeping Stephanie Barnes safe first, and keeping them together second."

"That sounds very naive," Agent Stevens said quietly. Her gaze seemed to get very far away for a moment, but then snapped back to him with interest and challenge mixed in her piercing eyes. "You know a lot about Captain Barnes for someone who isn't a historian or a vet."

"I wrote my dissertation on them," he admitted just a little sheepishly. "Him and Stephanie both. Cost-benefit analysis of having long-range specialists lead a team with notes on the advantages of pair-sniping."

"You wrote your dissertation on them," she echoed, doubtful. "Did you …do well?"

Before Clint could answer, Tony Stark stuck his head in the door.

"Stevie! Your boy's on the go again."

Clint seemed to be having a major speaking-out-of-turn day.

"Does he mean the Winter Soldier?"

"He does."

The Winter Soldier was, by all accounts, the Soviet equivalent of the Widow- he had turned up more or less without explanation soon after Agent Stevens had begun working with SHIELD, and he seemed to be the stronger, scarier version of the perfect Soviet fighting machine. As far as anyone knew the only person who had ever been a target of his and survived was standing in front of Clint right now- the Soldier had gone after her in Bucharest some two years earlier, and they'd both been gone for weeks. When the Widow had turned up again, she had been so badly off that Stark, perhaps the closest thing to a friend she tolerated, had pulled every string that could be pulled and had her removed to some top-secret private recovery facility. No one seemed at all clear about what had happened in Romania, but her rivalry with the Soviet assassin only seemed to grow more entrenched. The really satisfying thing for SHIELD was how confused the Russians always seemed to be when an American, and a woman at that, outfoxed the Soldier with at least as much regularity as he got one over on her. By now most of SHIELD took it for granted that it would be Maria Stevens who answered the call when the Winter Soldier showed his creepy, masked face around some sorry town or other.

"Awesome."

Maybe he'd hit his head in training, Clint thought, because it really seemed like the Widow was smiling at him.

"You wanna come? I haven't been out with a partner since- in a whole age, it feels like."

Clint closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, then breathed out. When he opened his eyes and found she was still there, watching him expectantly, he decided he might actually be awake.

"Did you just ask me if I'd come out with you? Against the Winter Soldier? As your _partner_?"

Agent Stevens waited.

"Yes! Of course. Please. Ma'am."

She was definitely smiling. Stark raised an eyebrow when Clint followed Stevens onto the landing pad but seemed content to accept the Widow's judgment.

* * *

 

"God, he's fast."

Clint watched in envious, almost fearful amazement as the dark figure ahead of them loped over the sloping roofscape as easily as if it had been a rolling meadow. Agent Stevens nodded, following Kochak's movements with keen attention.

"Scherer's serum."

Clint took his eyes off the Winter Soldier to stare at his newfound mentor.

"Is it anything like Erskine's?"

"Almost exactly." He thought she sounded amused, but her face was perfectly expressionless, her eyes on the Russian as he evaded his pursuers with alarming ease. "God damn it, what are you doing?"

Before Clint could protest that he wasn't doing anything but staying where he was and watching their quarry like he'd been told, Agent Stevens raised her rifle. 

Clint held his breath.

The Winter Soldier whipped around as the Widow's bullet barely missed his cheek. He saw the man coming at him with a knife just in time to throw his assailant off the roof in one smooth motion. 

"You were warning him," Clint realised. Stevens raised an eyebrow.

"Maybe I missed?"

"I've seen you train. You never miss. You wanted him to see that guy."

"You gonna tell on me, Barton?"

Her voice was light, but Clint knew a test when he heard one. He thought about it carefully.

"I don't _think_ you're working for the Russians."

The look of revulsion on her face was reassurance enough. He grinned. "Does he know you're helping him?"

She jerked her head in the direction they'd both been looking before. Clint looked up in time to see the Winter Soldier raise his head and offer the Widow a casual three-fingered salute before he jumped neatly out of sight.

"He's so cool," Clint sighed.

"He thinks so," the Widow muttered, but Clint thought her voice was warmer than it had been.

* * *

 

"Didja get him?" Stark demanded as soon as he collected them. The Widow rolled her eyes instead of answering.

"Ah well. Another day, another chance to catch your Commie. Are we keeping the intern?"

Clint realised Agent Stevens was waiting for him to speak for himself, and did his best not to squeak when he did.

"I think you are. I'm not an intern, though. I'm pretty sure my title is Junior Agent?"

"On this team you're the intern. Did anyone clear this with Fury?"

"Whatcha think, Ant'ny? I don't know why you think this is a team."

"Oh good," Stark beamed. "I love giving that guy a migraine in the morning. It's definitely a team, Stevie."

Clint wondered vaguely what he was getting himself into, and found he didn't care as much as he probably should.

He sat back, pondering what he now knew about the Russians having their own version of the semi-legendary super-serum. A different thought occurred to him.

"Is it because of him you know so much about Captain Barnes?"

In the cockpit, Tony Stark began to laugh.

"I guess you could say that," Agent Stevens said thoughtfully. "Shut up, Stark, it's a fair question."

Clint thought that might be high praise, from her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celtic love songs, strange acquaintanceships and a judicious Star Wars reference falling on deaf ears.

"Is that  _Síuil, a Rún_?"

Since their first outing together, Agent Stevens seemed to have semi-officially adopted Clint as her protégé. This meant that the Widow turned up when he was training and grumbled at him in an impatient, slightly bored tone until his friends were pale with jealousy and his technique much improved, and that she didn't bite his head off when he worked up the courage to join her in the mess from time to time. It also meant that half of SHIELD cast him curious looks every time he showed his face, and that both Nick Fury and Tony Stark actually remembered his name now. It was pretty weird, all told, but even so it had never entailed talking about the music on his Walkman before. It hadn't even been playing that loudly. Clint glanced up curiously.

"Are you into Clannad?"

Agent Stevens looked very carefully blank- he had seen her make that face before, usually when Stark was lecturing a mile a minute and she had given up trying to make sense of his babbling. 

"They're a band," he offered. "From Ireland. Mostly Celtic stuff, kind of new-agey." 

She nodded- more to show she understood than in endorsement, he thought.

"My mother used to sing this song. It's not new-agey at all. I think it's about a war in the 1700s." 

"Awesome," Clint murmured, unsure what to make of the fact that the woman who had a reputation for talking as little as possible if she could help it was telling him about her family, let alone a war in the 1700s. Wanting to make the moment last, he asked if she knew what the Irish parts of the lyrics meant. Agent Stevens nodded readily. 

"She's talking to her soldier boy. She says 'Go, my love. Go quietly and in peace. Come to the door and escape with me, and may you go safely, my darling.'"

Clint frowned.

"Is that supposed to be happy or sad or what? Is he leaving her or leaving with her?" 

He wasn't really expecting an answer, but Agent Stevens smiled softly. Her voice was a little distant; she spoke as though the answer really mattered.

"He never wanted to leave. She knows he can't come home the way things are, but as long as he's alive she won't stop hoping."

She glanced up and grimaced. "Now shut up and look busy before Coulson decides I want to chat with just anyone."

Clint couldn't have helped the grin that spread across his face if Nick Fury himself had placed some kind of official embargo on smiling at SHIELD. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Phil was, in fact, watching them curiously.

"Are we chatting?"

"We were. Now we're ignoring each other in the hope that Coulson will ignore us too."

Clint had started the day in weirder ways, he thought. He ignored the Widow as instructed- or at least he made no effort to interact with her. As she stared at her notes, expression as serene as ever but eyes still fixed on some far point in time or memory, Clint wondered guiltily what he had inadvertently forced her to remember.

* * *

The second time they tangled with the Winter Soldier, it was the Americans who were being pursued. It wasn't the Soviets giving chase, either, but A.I.M. on the hunt for some technical something-or-other that made Stark even more than usually excitable. They were in Shanghai, having retrieved the gadgets but up against a wall with nowhere to go as a pinched-faced assassin with a cruel smile backed them into a corner.

Agent Stevens stepped in front of Clint with all the confidence of a woman who knew her work, but he grabbed her arm and tried to drag her back.

"Barton, don't-"

"No, I won't let you-"

An awful, wet sound interrupted them; the A.I.M. agent staggered and then crashed to the ground as an ice-blonde head came into view.

The knife in his victim's back had punctured a lung. Clint felt vaguely sick.

"You need to be more careful, zvezda moya."

Clint was almost disappointed. Somehow, he had assumed that the very epitome of Soviet intelligence would have a much more intimidating voice- like Mirror Spock, he thought ridiculously, but more Russian. Not Chekov-Russian; like Stalin, maybe. Instead, the Winter Soldier sounded- really normal. His accent wasn't even that thick. He also sounded a lot more teasing than threatening, which really undercut the menacing mask-and-goggle set he never seemed to leave home without. Agent Stevens didn't seem to mind.

"Aw, but then I'd never see you."

The soldier sighed as if her answer was deeply frustrating on a personal level.

"SHIELD melodrama. You know you'd be able to find me if you had to. Will you be all right now?"

"You gonna walk us to the corner if I say no?"

"Wait," Clint spluttered, then wished he hadn't as the eerie mirrored gaze turned towards him. He pressed on because he wouldn't give up his increasingly secure position on the Widow's (alleged) team to avoid all the creepy bug-glares in the world. The Widow was watching him too, which made him feel safer but also more awkward by half. "Are you, like, actually friends, or something?"

Agent Stevens grinned, but let the Winter Soldier answer.

"Or something."

He cocked his head, listening to something Clint couldn't make out. Super-Soviet, right. "I have to go. Be safe, Mashka; Mashka's infant sidekick."

She nodded, still smiling, and he disappeared the way he'd come before Clint finished objecting loudly to being called an infant. (Sidekick he thought he could live with.)

* * *

"Hey," Stark cried much too enthusiastically. "The ice-man has an intern too! His is a lot hotter than yours, Stevie-girl."

"If you don't stop calling me that I'm going to put my initials in the hood of your car with my Colt," she said calmly. The Widow knew how to hit a man where it hurt; Clint grinned at Tony while Stark reached his unique levels of SHIELD melodrama in response to her not quite idle threat.

They actually had a name for the Winter Soldier's partner- Natalia Romanova, official handle still unknown. She was a little green, Fury and the higher-ups agreed, but she was also deadly accurate, absolutely fearless, and the only Soviet agent they'd ever seen show the slightest promise of keeping up with the Winter Soldier. She moved with him as if she'd been doing it all her life, and when the tactical team played back some grainy footage of the two of them taking down a score of opponents in five minutes flat Clint knew he wasn't the only one who sighed in admiration. To his continued annoyance, though, half of his colleagues seemed convinced that the coordination Romanova and her trainer showed could not be learnt by just hard work and Soviet-level discipline. 

"Come on, they have to be doing it."

"No way," Clint snapped the fourth time he found himself in the same argument. "She's way too young for him, come on. She's just a baby, look at her."

Agent Stevens, who had glanced over when he raised his voice, smirked faintly as she returned to the notebook she always seemed to carry with her. 

* * *

 Clint was bored to death keeping watch at some typically pointless diplomatic mission. From his point of view it mostly involved standing around on yet another rooftop, freezing half to death and watching maybe two feet of snow collect on the ground while more important people got to stay warm inside. He tried not to think about political dingbats making nice while military dingbats made threats- there was no need to be aggravated as well as frost-bitten. Just as he was about to say something sarcastic about the weather, Agent Stevens stiffened and motioned for Clint to be quiet and follow her lead. Between the snow and the roof's narrow edge it was impossible to see what she was looking at, so he just nodded and crept along behind her. He tried to stay tense and battle-ready, waiting for the Widow to raise her gun, or at least some kind of alarm. 

Instead, she crouched at the edge of the roof and used both hands to push a huge pile of snow directly onto the Soviet agent keeping an eye on the proceedings from below.With a tiny, girlish whoop, Clint's mentor jumped easily off the edge of the roof to land behind her startled opposite number.

As Clint watched in slack-jawed astonishment, the Winter Soldier sprang at Maria Stevens. He was agile as a panther and about as quick: she would have had very little time to get out of his way if she had been making any kind of effort to avoid him. Maria's supposed nemesis kept one gloved hand at her neck, protecting her head as he tackled her backwards into the snow. Clint wondered if anyone at SHIELD had ever heard the Widow laugh.

Before Clint could decide whether he ought to help her on principle or leave her to her apparently harmless roughhousing, Natalia Romanova tapped his shoulder from behind him. 

"Hi," she said simply, and he had a moment to think that Natalia was even lovelier in real life before she shoved him over the edge of the roof and let herself come tumbling after him. It was perfectly safe thanks to the virtual snowdrift below, but Clint still landed on his back with a graceless thud. Before he could get his bearings, the Russian girl smashed his face into the snow with a breathy giggle that seemed entirely at odds with her electrifying energy. 

"Let them have this," she whispered close to his face.

It wasn't the snow but the warmth of her breath on his neck that made Clint shiver. She let him up; he lingered for a moment, fervently grateful that Natalia seemed to take the same view of East-West relations as her trainer. By the time he had dragged himself out of the snow, the Soviets were well out of sight and the Widow was dusting the snow off her jacket with her usual expression of polite detachment.

"You good, Barton? We should get back up there before anyone thinks to check on us."

"Sometimes," he told her as he fell into step with her. "Running with you is a lot like being on drugs."

"I’m sure I wouldn’t know," Agent Stevens said lightly, but she patted his arm sympathetically as they headed back to their post. 

* * *

"So, that mask. It’s not like a Darth Vader kind of deal, is it?"

Clint kept his eyes on the target in front of them until he couldn't bear her silence and turned to find her watching him with her I-don't-do-pop-culture expression. He gave up without much resistance- if there was one person in America who hadn't seen Star Wars, it would be Maria Stevens.  

"You have actually seen his face, right?" 

"Yes, Barton."

"And it's not, like, hideously deformed or anything?" 

"No, Barton."

"Is he hot?" 

There was a long pause filled only by the sound of gunfire.

"My whole life I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like his. God alone knows why they bleach his hair, though."

Clint met her eyes, probably looking stunned. The Widow adjusted his grip on the gun Stark had ordered him to try out. "He hates it more than I do. It’s much better the normal way. Your turn. Watch your right hand, when you get lazy you list to the left." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Irish Heritage Tour continues: Clannad is a band that was around for AGES (and is kind of still around); I think they are most famous for the Theme from Harry's Game and for being related to Enya, who played with them a little before she went off and did her own similar thing. Siúil, a rún (which they recorded in 1976) is in fact a really old very traditional song with lyrics about being left by a guy who has to go where he doesn't want to go and probably won't be able to come back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Red Room, tension with Tony, romance almost but not quite out of a musical.

"Hey," Clint said with a grin. "Look who's back."

It had been more than a month- closer to two- since they'd last caught sight of the Winter Soldier, and though she hadn't said a word Clint knew his mentor hadn't been getting steadily more tense and tight-lipped because of Stark's endless winter-themed puns.

Agent Stevens did not react with the wry, barely-concealed relief Clint had anticipated.

"Get down, get down! God damn it, are we doing this already? Yasha, a rún-"

She practically threw Clint to the ground as the Winter Soldier's switch-knife embedded itself in the wall too close to where his head had been. He advanced, snarling at them in Russian. Agent Stevens moved to meet him, but Clint realised she'd deliberately dropped her gun before she stood. She spoke entreatingly, but her stance showed only strength and conviction.

"We don't have to fight, Captain."

Clint didn't know what the Soldier replied, but his voice, strangely gravelly, was hard as steel. Maria made no move to defend herself until his hand closed around her throat. He lifted her right off the ground as she wrapped both hands around his, rasping his name.

"Yakov, pozhaluysta, ya Ste-"

Seeing no alternative, Clint raised his gun.

"Yasha! Yasha!"

Clint turned towards the sound of Natalia's distress; more to the point, the Winter Soldier did as well. She was nowhere to be seen- there was no way to guess what was wrong. With a frustrated growl, he flung the Widow away from him with what Clint imagined would have been a filthy look if they could see any part of his face and took off in the direction of his student's cries.

"Clever girl," Maria whispered. Unusually, it wasn't Natasha Clint wanted to talk about.

"What the hell was that?"

"Red Room," Agent Stevens said dully. "There are so many people I'd like to shoot in the face over that damn programme."

"What's that mean? It was like he didn't even know you."

"He didn't. He doesn't. Not yet."

"What? How?"

"Moscow's bloody conditioning," she spat. "Makes him their perfect soldier for a while- when there's nothing else for him he might as well do exactly what they say when they say the way they say. Then he breaks through it, because he's the best and bravest boy who ever lived- for a few days he has two sets of memories and can't tell which way is up, then he goes a little nuts about whatever they made him do, and then finally we get him back and just hang on until they decide he's getting too human and start the whole thing again."

Maria's expression barely wavered from its usual deadly calm. Clint swallowed; his voice was thick and weird to his ears.

"You're talking about brainwashing. Like, actual mind control. They can do that now. They do do that. In Russia."

She nodded.

"But it doesn't last?"

"Thank God for that damn serum. It's a chemical thing, so thanks to his crazy metabolism or cell structure or I forget what he gets over it four times quicker than he should. As long he can hide the mental breakdown his handlers will follow the usual schedule. This last time we got nearly five months."

"And his- Romanova knows all this?"

"All their people know about the Red Room," she said quietly. "But Tasha also knows when to keep goddamn Lukin off his back and what to tell him when he can't remember his own name."

"Which is Yasha," Clint ventured.

"Some of the time," Maria answered cryptically. Clint shrugged; who knew what the Winter Soldier's handlers chose to call him?

"Can't we bring him in? If you told Fury-"

When she interrupted, Agent Stevens' voice was colder than the Soldier's had been before.

"Fury left him out there to begin with. I'll not have him anywhere near my-"

She cut herself off, still gazing in the direction the Soldier had gone. "No, we'll handle this ourselves."

* * *

"I'm just saying this is not your best plan ever."

Clint, finally heading back to his own room after a tactical briefing that had felt like it would never end, paused on the landing at the sound of Tony Stark remonstrating with someone quietly, seriously, and with palpable concern.

"Let him come to you like you always say you will."

"He won't, Tony."

Upset and frustrated, Agent Stevens actually seemed close to tears. "He always stays away too long- makes himself crazy worrying about what he'll do."

"It's not exactly an abstract fear. You do remember he was ready to kill you not six weeks ago?"

"He didn't mean to."

If not for the content of their conversation it would have been hilarious how much Maria sounded like a frustrated teenager whose father wouldn't let her take the car out after 10. Stark, unmoved, stuck to his guns with his usual acid confidence.

"Well, that's okay then. When he actually manages it I'll go ahead and tell him you forgive him as long as he didn't mean to. I'm sure he'll feel much better."

"Look, he's losing his mind out there, and there's only Tasha to talk him through it."

"Yeah, I'm not seeing how that's a reason to join him."

Her voice hardened.

"I'm always going to go after him if he needs me, you know that."

"I do know that. We all know that. Isn't that how you two ended up in this mess? Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

There was a long moment of pained silence- Stark had obviously crossed a line, but Clint couldn't see anything like a causal link between what little he knew of the Red Room and Agent Stevens' desire to provide backup whether it was requested or not.

"Your father used to do that too."

"What, make good points and be right about everything but hurt everyone's feelings in the process? Try to protect his friends before mutually-assured destruction ruins everything they've worked for?"

Maria sounded quite fond when she finally replied.

"Get frustrated, then get mean and regret it right away. I'll be back in a few days, okay?

"Don't get killed," Stark muttered.

"Look after my intern," she said as her voice retreated. Clint thought that might be the closest either of them ever got to apologising.

* * *

"Yasha says sorry he nearly killed you," Natalia announced as she dropped into view. "He'll try not to do it again."

Clint, barely managing not to jump out of his skin, turned to her with what he hoped looked like a casual shrug rather than a nervous shudder.

"It wasn't really him anyway."

That seemed to be the right thing to say- she didn't smile, but she looked- kinder, somehow. It made Clint want to lean in and fill the space between them with something more than awkward sympathy.

"Maria keeps telling him that."

"Is he okay?"

"Getting better. It's not so bad now she's with him."

"Are the two of you doing okay?"

Natasha hesitated. Clint frowned.

"What did he-"

"Nothing," she snapped, immediately defensive. Clint held up his hands in exaggerated surrender and waited for her to explain. "He's usually so …it's hard to see him like this."

"In full Soviet mode?"

She shook her head.

"Trapped between. Scared to move in case it's not his decision. He's not all in his own mind- he calls Masha all different names and asks about people who died years ago, or else he begs her to leave before he hurts her again. Or he thinks she isn't real and I have to swear I can see her too, or they spend half a day in silence because he can't tell what language he's trying to speak and she doesn't like to push when he's already on edge. It's really… it really sucks, that's all."

Clint laughed weakly at her use of 'terrible American slang.' He asked his next question in the spirit of keeping things light, hoping Natalia wouldn't feel honour-bound to shoot him on behalf of her beloved Yasha.

"So do you think they're, you know. You know?"

She didnt even bother to mock him out loud. Clint grinned at the face she pulled and tried to use grown-up words. "Is he her- this is definitely a romantic thing, right?"

Natalia patted his shoulder very patronisingly.

"They've been together for years and years, dorogoy moy."

He definitely didn't blush at the unexpected (and probably mostly sarcastic) endearment.

"Really? So like from before she- wait, how are you so sure?"

"I asked him. You should finish your patrol. I only wanted to tell you sorry, and Maria says she'll know if you skip sparring practice again. She also says please tell Stark to 'keep his drawers on,' she'll be back by the weekend."

"Thanks, Natasha."

She smiled at him, like they were friends for real, then turned on her heel. Clint resisted the urge to stay right there and watch her leave. He was still grinning when he got back to base.

On Saturday morning, the Widow greeted Nick Fury with three tips so valuable that he didn't even ask where she'd disappeared to to get them. By afternoon, she was back to rolling her eyes at Stark's antics and correcting Clint's grip like every inaccuracy was a personal offense. She was a little withdrawn, Clint thought, and clearly very tired, but if pretending normalcy would help achieve it he was happy to play along.

* * *

Clint had never expected to meet real live Nazis, but the maniacal Austrians intent on spreading chaos by poorly-defined biochemical means insisted that they were part of the "deep science" cult Clint had thought had ended with James and Stephanie Barnes. These latter-day HYDRA guys had proved surprisingly hardcore for a bunch of nutjobs, but for once SHIELD had enough agents in the right place at the right time and one of the weirder threats to New York's security was minimised with unusual efficiency. Less happily, Clint had lost sight of Agent Stevens about halfway through the fight; by the time it was all over, she'd been missing unusually long- normally she checked on Clint about once every seven minutes, it felt like. He tried to trace his own steps in search of her, but instead of Maria Stevens he found Natasha Romanova, standing alone in a deserted alley and smiling very slightly.

When he followed her gaze up the rickety Hell's Kitchen fire escape, Clint almost dropped his gun.  
About four storeys above them, the Widow had just backed the Winter Soldier up against the building, her intentions clear. Clint gaped at them while Maria tangled her hands in her soldier's hair and went for his lips with an urgency that looked almost like aggression. It was the only time he'd ever seen the guy without mask or goggles, but the shadows were too deep for it to make much difference. He didn't even have his gloves on- his deft fingers showed pale against the thick waves of Maria's hair.

"She let him mess with her bun," he observed as if that were the strangest thing they were seeing. "One time Coulson asked what her hair looked like down- she said she'd shoot him if he tried to touch it."

Tasha actually laughed. The couple on the stairs didn't seem to notice. Clint and Tasha took a few steps away to try and afford their mentors some privacy, not that they seemed to care.

"I think your Coulson will only ever imagine a lot of what Yasha gets to do."

Clint, grimacing automatically, considered the possibility that he'd breathed in some toxic HYDRA hallucinogen without realizing it.

"I feel like we're joking about my parents having sex."

"I was being serious," Natasha objected primly. Her eyes gleamed with affectionate laughter. Clint couldn't remember ever feeling as lighthearted as he did right then.

"Is this what happens when he's …himself again? They wander off in between fights to play in the snow or make out on staircases like this is freaking West Side Story?"

"Yasha says when all you have is borrowed time you have to live while you can. Wouldn't Maria be with Tony in West Side Story?"

Clint stared at Natalia in amazement. She shrugged.

"They like old musicals. You should find your friends, she's not going to leave him tonight unless she has to."

"Damn Soviet charm," Clint said without thinking. "It's hard to resist."

When he looked up, Tasha was a lot closer than he remembered. To his complete surprise, she pressed her lips to his, soft and warm, just for a moment.

"Who says you have to resist?"

That was a good question, Clint thought. The best question. Maybe the only question. "See you soon, Clint."

He couldn't tell Tony why he was "grinning like a stupid ass, Barton," or why he burst out laughing when poor Phil Coulson asked if he knew where Agent Stevens had got to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apparently the happiness content of the Irish Catholic AU is so high that even the Winter Soldier comes out kind of fluffy. who knew? not me. hmm.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> flowers, trouble with a door, and then the ...shield hits the fan?

“You should have seen the nurses,” Clint told Tasha with a grin. “They were going crazy trying to guess who sent them.”

He'd only got word in the morning that the Widow was back from one of her secret solo assignments that SHIELD only let them find out about after the fact, let alone that she had taken a hit but was expected to recover without complications. Clint had dashed over to medical as soon as he'd had a free moment, expecting to find Agent Stevens bored and testy with everyone giving her a wide berth. Instead, he’d come in to discover no fewer than four women crowded around Maria’s bed, cooing over the vase of perfect white lilies someone had broken all their rules to bring her in the middle of the night.

“It must have been Mr. Stark,” Allison Hale was insisting. “This is just the kind of thing he’d do.”

Maria had rolled her eyes.

“Maybe if there were fifty, and they were red and yellow with his name on them.”

“Was it Phil Coulson? You know he has the biggest crush on you.”

“It wasn’t Coulson. It wasn’t Fury either, Ellen.”

“Maybe it was the Winter Soldier,” Clint had offered from the doorway. “White makes sense for him, right? Seasonally appropriate or whatever.”

It had had the desired effect: the nurses had scattered, throwing him hurt, reproving looks as the Widow offered him one of her gentler smiles- amused but also grateful and just pleased to see him.

Tasha nodded solemnly.

“I’m glad they survived. He was not convinced he could take them on the bike.”

There was something so absurd- hilarious, heartwarming and totally surreal- about the idea of the Winter Soldier worrying about how to transport the flowers he was going to _break into SHIELD headquarters to deliver_ that Clint gave up on dignity and laughed like a maniac.

“I love them,” he muttered. “I’ve never seen people that scary _or_ that ridiculous, never mind both at the same time.”

“Good,” Natasha said more seriously than Clint had expected. She was watching him carefully, something unusually vulnerable showing in her face. “I want you to like my family, Clint.”

In some ways, it was the perfect opening: he had so many questions about how she'd managed to get so close to someone like the Winter Soldier, let alone ended up watching old musicals with him and Maria Stevens. 

But Clint wasn't alone with the prettiest girl in New York very often, and he really didn't want  _all_ their private conversations to be about other people. 

“I do,” he assured her. “Not as much as I like you, though.”

Natasha laughed even more uproariously than he had. 

“That is a terrible line,” she giggled. “I’m going to tell Masha you’re worse than her guy. That idiot uses lines that were old in the 1930s.”

She moved a little closer, setting him up to put his arm around her as if he’d been planning it the whole time. 

“You’re both lucky you’re so pretty.”

He tried to waggle his eyebrows Stark-style.

“Just lucky you ladies think so.”

“That was better,” Natasha smiled. “There might be hope for you.”

“I’ll even bring you flowers if you really want.” 

She shoved him off the bench; Clint wondered if that was going to become a thing. As long as she also made a habit of landing with him and letting him clasp his arms around her, though, he thought he could learn to live with the bruises.

“No white lilies,” Tasha ordered, poking his chest to emphasise her point. “That’s their thing. Roses. Red or orange. Not pink.” 

“Not pink,” he echoed agreeably. “Only fire colours like your hair. Got it.” 

She didn’t seem to mind that line, he thought, and then she lowered her mouth to his and he had quite other things to think about.

* * *

“Did you know them before Stark brought you in?”

Agent Stevens looked curious.

“Who are we talking about?”

“Yasha and Tasha from Soviet Russia,” Clint singsonged, feeling bold because they were alone in Maria’s private quarters. Agent Stevens had given up on the mess about halfway through dinner, declaring that she'd have to throw something at Phil Coulson if he cast another longing look at their table. Clint had been as surprised as anyone when she’d waited for him to follow, but he'd grabbed his plate and kept pace with a growing grin.

“Jeez, that sounds even sillier out loud. How does anyone take them seriously before they start shooting?”

Maria laughed- a real, easy laugh, Clint thought with pride.

“I don’t think they introduce themselves like that.”

She handed him a mug, then did a little double take and asked belatedly how he took his coffee.

“I can drink it Winter Soldier style,” he teased- and then very nearly poured it all over himself when he realized _Maria Stevens_ was blushing.

“Sorry,” she muttered. Clint beamed.

“So, long enough to make his coffee by default,” he hinted broadly. She didn’t seem to mind, but her answer didn’t clarify much.

“When you figure this out you’re either going to exceed goddamn Coulson in your enthusiasm or never speak to me again.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

As was typical of life at SHIELD, that was the moment when Stark hammered on her door to report that they had to go, right away, because something big was going down with “some Russians, but we’re not sure which ones.”

* * *

 

The thing with the Russians wasn’t going well at all. Clint shoved vainly at the door behind them, trying not to wonder how long he'd get to keep his own memories now they’d manage to corner themselves so conveniently. 

“Stop that,” Maria snapped. “If it hasn’t worked by now it’s not going to.”

“So, what, we’re just trapped? That’s it, the end, we give up and wait for our one-way trip to Moscow and hope this is the Lukin gang and not the Karpov gang or we’ll  _still_ be on opposite sides if they even let us remember who we are?”

Maria softened slightly at the sight of his anxiety.

“We could stand and fight, Agent Barton.”

Agent Stevens looked ready to do just that, but then she blinked slowly and her predatory look turned into one of happy exasperation. “Or hail the cavalry like a pair of swooning damsels. Predictable bloody knight in shining armour.”

The Winter Soldier took the door they hadn’t been able to budge right off its hinges.

“Woman, how do you even get into these scraps?”

“Just lucky, I guess. Thanks.”

Clint got the distinct impression the Winter Soldier was rolling his eyes behind his goggles, but before he could appreciate the effect fully he was deeply and maybe permanently distracted by the sensation of Tasha Romanova throwing her arms around him in relief. She stepped away almost immediately, but smiled when he took her hand.

“Stark knows where to get you?”

When Stevens nodded, the Soldier stepped away from their little group. “Good. Tasha will take you the long way around.”

Maria caught his arm.

“What d'you think you're doing?”

“It’s slow going. I’ll make sure you have time.”

“You can't mean to stay here.”

“You have a better plan? They’ll know I was here just from the door- might as well make it count for something if Lukin's gonna want me either way.”

“Just come with us. We can-”

“You’re not living on the run."  His gloved hand ghosted over her cheek. “That's not who you are. I’m going to finish this, all right? No more hiding.”

Maria was shaking her head, but it was like all the fight had gone out of her. The hand on his arm clenched and unclenched as though she knew she had to let go but couldn't make herself do it.

“Siúil, a rún,” she murmured. “Come back to me, James, you hear?”

Clint tightened his grip on Tasha’s hand as she started to move towards the other two.

“Yasha, I can-”

“No. They won’t get anywhere without you, Natashen’ka.”

They heard the clatter of their pursuers drawing closer. The Winter Soldier pulled away, squaring his shoulders.

“Go dté sibh slán. Go now.”

There was an anguished, undecided pause, then Tasha made the call for them. Nodding at her trainer, she grabbed Maria’s hand with her free one and dragged both Americans along roughly until they picked up the pace on their own. They heard the Soviets catch up with the Winter Soldier- their outrage at his betrayal faded as they wound their way towards the outside air. They were nearly there when Maria froze up.

“He’s down,” she muttered; it didn’t immediately occur to Clint to wonder how she knew. “Took half of them with him but he’s done.”

“He’ll figure something out,” Clint whispered, willing it to be true. “He’s the Winter Soldier: he knows what he’s doing, right?”

“No,” both women said together.

* * *

Stark glanced between Maria and Natalia. Clint didn’t think he was comfortable seeing Tony Stark look that uncertain. 

“You want to stash the Winter Soldier’s protégée at SHIELD headquarters?”

“If you were looking for the Winter Soldier’s protégé would you start at SHIELD headquarters?”

Stark admitted that he would not. Clint tried not to react too obviously when Tasha settled against his shoulder with a relieved sigh, but he didn’t miss Maria’s affectionately knowing look.

He'd assumed they weren't going to talk about Yasha until they heard something either way, but when he opened his eyes maybe an hour later, Maria was staring out of the window with such awful self-loathing and regret on her face that Clint had to say something.

“He wanted to do it,” he blurted. “It wasn’t like your song. He had a choice, right? And he’s going to come back.”

She nodded.

“Was he quoting it back to you?" 

He cringed as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but Maria didn’t frown or freeze or otherwise act like he’d just been an insensitive ass.

“Nearly. Same wish, 'go safely,' but for a group. And he didn't call us 'darling.'"  

"How come you know Irish?" 

"His mam taught us."

That was too surprising not to repeat.

"His mother's _Irish_?" 

“From County Clare. Mine too.”

Which maybe answered the question of where she’d been before SHIELD, and how she’d come to be involved with the Winter Soldier before he'd used that handle.

“You called him ‘James,’” he remembered. “But his dad was Russian?”

“His father was a lousy good-for-nothing,” she said bitterly, still looking out the window. Clint let that one go without comment.

“But how did he end up- you know. Not in Ireland?”

This time she did frown, though not really at Clint.

“We got separated. It wasn’t his fault. That time it was exactly like that song.”  

There was another long silence, then Clint shrugged, trying to keep things light but sincere.

“Well. She doesn’t give up as long as he’s still alive, right?”

Maria finally turned towards him. Her smile was small, but warm and grateful.

“Thanks, Clint.”

* * *

“Coulson,” Clint bit out a few mornings later, “I have no idea what you’re saying, man.”

He didn't mean to snap, not really, but the complete lack of information was beginning to wear on everyone waiting on the Winter Soldier. Tasha, still hidden away like a prettier, less psychotic Phantom of the …SHIELD apartment, was tense as a bowstring and twice as likely to snap; Maria was absolutely gentle with her but much more terrifying than usual, even for the Widow, on the field and in training. Stark hadn't been to see her, probably consciously trying not to draw attention to her quarters, but from the way the techs were talking it wasn't going all that well with him, either.

Phil, guileless and eager, missed all of this admittedly hard-to-guess subtext and elaborated happily.

“It’s on all the official channels- as of today SHIELD's acknowledging the Winter Soldier as an American agent. Word is Agent Stevens got through to him somehow. What a coup! Did you know about this? Have you met him? He hasn’t been a double agent this whole time, has he?”

Clint's initial rush of intense relief chilled into dread as soon as he thought about what Phil was saying. There was just no way- Maria had been dead against that idea from the very first time Clint had mentioned it. Even worse than that- Clint shuddered. If this broke in Russia before the Soldier got away from Lukin, things were going to get very bad for him very quickly.

“Widow doesn’t look that pleased about it, actually.” Jasper Sitwell slid into the seat next to Phil’s. “Maybe they offered him her job? When I saw her she was heading towards tactical with her “Die, scum” face on like even Stark’s never seen it.”

Clint ran.

When he threw himself into Fury’s office uninvited he found Maria Stevens with her cherished Colt aimed unerringly at their director. Her face was transfigured by grief mixed with the kind of slow-burning anger that might never completely die away. Her voice was like glass on asphalt.

“I’m running out of reasons not to do it, Nick. You wanna tell me why you keep signing your deals in my husband’s blood?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things fall apart; things fit together.

"Agent Stevens," Fury began in a placating tone which was deeply unnerving coming from him, "We are trying to help you and Captain-"

He fell silent as the gun jerked in her hands. 

"I don't think you are, Nick. I think you're trying to help yourselves now you realise we don't need you as much as you thought."

"No," Fury protested. "It was always our intention to see you back together. We've always wanted the same thing, Maria." 

"If that were true you'd never have split us up." 

"That wasn't an option," Fury protested. "Lukin got there first. If we hadn't struck this bargain you'd both have faced the Red Room." 

"I don't know what you think you're saying," Maria hissed. "But all I'm hearing is that you knew about that god-damned programme and still made that bloody deal."

Clint, still reeling from the casual bombshell that was "my husband," glanced between them nervously. Maria's face was so pale that he took an instinctive step towards her, just in case. 

"We had reason to believe he would come to you. Our analysts were convi-"

"Of course that was your game."

Her voice shook. "Your analysts said he'd come to me if you threw us together often enough, is that it? You let me spend six months  _trying to kill my husband on your instructions_  so you could say "fair play" when Johnny Russki tried to complain about his eventual defection? He should never have had to change sides, you bastard."

"We had to make a choice."

Fury sounded frustrated, but also more uncomfortable than Clint had ever heard him. "Ca-he had a much higher chance of making a full recovery. If we hadn't taken you with us you might be on the Soviet team looking to murder your husband right now." 

"You traded his sanity to hedge your bets, you heartless son of a bitch. For what? To protect that damn serum- they never even tried it on, do you realise that? All they ever did was take him and break him and send him out again."

Unexpectedly, she let her weapon drop. Clint breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"Wouldn't be worth it, would it?" 

Clint wasn't sure if she was talking to him, to Fury, or to herself, but he nodded encouragingly.

"I want you to know-" and this was definitely for Fury- "that the main reason I'm going to let this go  _for now_ is that if he does find his way home I don't want his first job after breaking out of some Soviet hellhole to be breaking into one of yours." 

"Good call," Tony said from close behind Clint. "Soviets are going insane- they just recovered Lukin. Headshot using his own sidearm, same as Karpov. Your guy is scary as all hell, Stevie, but he's got style. Red Room's basically broken, sounds like." 

Fury jumped at the opportunity this news afforded.

"There is a place for him here," he said in what Clint had long since thought of as Nick Fury's Recruitment Drive Voice. "He would have our full protection, and you could work together again." 

"Gee," she said caustically. "Thanks so much. If we don't work here we'll probably have to take jobs in different states." 

Stark rolled his eyes. 

"You really think he needs SHIELD protection? As of today he's the guy who disabled the Red Room single-handedly, and that's just what he did this week. There's no one on either side looking to mess with that."

Tony's smile was vicious. 

"Face it, Nick. Even if either one of them couldn't kick you into next week without assistance, they have enough on you to bring this organization down several times over. If they go to the press they'll probably be able to take on the government and win. You think about that the next time you feel like forcing their hand."

Maria nodded once. 

"I think we're done here. If you send anyone after us you'll find them the way they just found Lukin. I mean that. Tasha Romanova too: if anyone harasses that girl they'll answer to my husband." 

Clint thought about going up against the combined force of the Widow _and_ the Winter Soldier, not to mention Tony Stark and Natalia Romanova, and was fervently glad he was on their side. Speaking of which- 

"Barton," Stark snapped from the doorway. "Are you coming or not?"

"I quit," he muttered over his shoulder.

"Oh yeah," Tony remembered. "Me too, I guess. And Stevie, but maybe that's covered by 'we're done here?' I dunno." 

 

"I don't really understand what just happened," Clint said from the back seat of Stark's convertible, "but you two are badass." 

Maria glanced at Tony uncertainly.

"That's a good thing," he assured her. "I'd say you too, but it's not clear to me what you were actually doing there." 

"Job-shadowing," Clint said sarcastically. "I'm the intern, aren't I?" 

"Tony," Maria interrupted, "Why the hell are we going to Brooklyn?" 

Tony's guilty expression was hilarious.

"I didn't, um, forget to tell you he's back in the States, did I?"

Maria was silent for a long, shocked-joyful moment.

"If you were anyone else I would shoot you in the face for that, Tony Stark."

"I keep telling people it's good to be Tony Stark," he grinned. When he continued, his voice was very gentle, and not only by Tony Stark's personal standards.  

"He's fine. Well, for him. Stab wound- not very major- bunch of broken ribs and, I quote, "concussion, maybe, I can't really tell without her." You two are something. He and the snow queen decided Brooklyn was more fun than the Upper East Side. Maybe it's more like the abject Communist conditions they've been putting up with, I dunno."

He laughed when she smacked his arm, hard. Tony's smile was small and almost sweet, nothing at all like the grin that was his public face.

"Your boy's come home, Stevie. For real, this time."

"If that's true," Maria said, back to her even, measured tones, "You're driving too damn slowly, Ant'ny." 

After a challenge like that had been issued even New York traffic couldn't stand between Tony Stark and his destination for too long.  
  
"Is this Middagh Street?" 

Clint was aware his voice was high and pitchy, but there were some possibilities that were more exciting than dignity was important. 

"Is it actually true that your father bought their apartment? Is that where we're going? Please tell me that's where we're going." 

"That's where we're going," Stark said brightly. 

"If he ever parks the car," Maria muttered. Her fingers tapped an agitated, excited rhythm on her thigh. Tony turned all the way round to smirk at Clint.

"If you're this enthused about the address you might actually die when you see what we've got inside," he grinned. Clint felt a little light-headed thinking about it. 

"Don't," Agent Stevens commanded. "I don't have time to deal with people dying right now." 

She was smiling, though. It wasn't the Widow's smile at all. 

"I'm sorry," she burst out. "Tony, I really have to-"

Stark was already holding out his keys.

"Go on. We don't need to watch you two sucking face any more than we're going to end up doing anyway. Give Natalia my sympathies."

The car door slammed hard enough to make the windows rattle.

"Poor baby," Tony muttered. "That mean old lady really has it in for you, huh."

"If you're done talking to your car, can we please park this baby somewhere suitably high-end so we can go upstairs and talk to your apartment which is actually James Barnes' apartment?"

Tony grinned at him with something like anticipation.

"Remember, you promised not to die."

* * *

 

Tasha met them on the landing of the walkup, scowling at Stark when he smirked knowingly.

"Don't. They both knew he might not make it back."

Tony took the telling-off much better than he'd ever taken the friendliest advice at SHIELD, barely acknowledging it but offering no resistance either.

"Did she like her surprise brunette?" 

Tasha's dark look vanished immediately. 

"I thought she was going to cry. She just stood there staring at him, and he just stood there and let her." 

"And then they started making out like teenagers and haven't stopped," Stark guessed. Clint braced himself to grab Tasha's hand before she stabbed their benefactor right in front of Captain Barnes' apartment, but this time Tasha laughed. 

"And then they kissed," she admitted. "But now he's telling her how he did it, which is long and violent and which I know already, so I came out here to wait for you." 

Clint felt his cheeks flush; somehow, it was very clear from the way she said it that she hadn't given any thought to whether Tony would show up.

"No," Stark said unhappily. "No, no, this going not to be my life now. Married bliss on the one side, Spy Romance: The Next Generation on the other, what? That's it, after we figure out what the hell we're doing next I'm going to get a girlfriend even if I have to-"

"Please don't say 'build her,' Stark." 

Clint smirked; both Tony and Tasha looked impressed.

"Hey," Maria stepped out of the apartment behind them and shut the door lightly. "Would you come here a minute, Clint?"

He stepped over, feeling very conscious of Stark and Tasha watching them curiously. 

"What's up?"

"I was going to tell you," she said seriously. "I should have told you from the start, maybe. But it wasn't only mine to tell, and then things were going way too quickly- I never expected we were going to make our move so soon. There wasn't really ever time, you know?"

"Sure," Clint said, meaning "not even a bit." 

"Are you having fun confusing the kid, Steph, or should we actually tell him something?"

Clint jumped. He glanced up reflexively at the man who had opened the door behind Maria, and then did two different double-takes in such short succession that he began to see why he had been specifically instructed, twice, not to expire upon entering the apartment.  
  
The man standing in the doorway was much younger than Clint had expected Tasha's trainer to be. Wearing a steel-grey sweater over dark jeans, the guy looked much less thickly muscular than he appeared in the armoured leather outfit that was all Clint had ever seen him in before, and his hair was neither ice-blond nor slicked back anymore. In fact, it wasn't the Winter Soldier Clint thought of at all, but-

"You're James Barnes," he rasped. "How- I mean-  no. Is that serum actually magic? This doesn't seem like it should work." 

"Every person involved in this project has said that at some point," Stark offered, "And yet it does."

Clint was staring at his mentor now, his mouth dry as he realised what he'd heard moments earlier.

"He's- and he called you- wait. Is Maria Stevens- did you just swap your names around? That's brilliant. Or stupid. It's not subtle. And Stark's been calling you "Stevie" this whole time! How has no one guessed that in five years?"

"I said all that," James Barnes said, looking very pleased. "Almost exactly that way, too."

"Can it," Stephanie Barnes elbowed her husband gently, mindful of his ribs. "You didn't even get a second name, Yakov Buchanov Barnski." 

"That is not how Russian names work," Tasha complained; the Captain grinned at her over Clint's head. 

"Apparently the hair colour has it," Tony said contemplatively.

"He recognized your address before he recognised your wife, Cap."

"You called him 'Cap,'" Clint said weakly, too thrilled to even try defending himself. 

Tasha looked first at Clint, caught between gaping and swooning, and then at Tony, still smirking. She addressed her questions to  _Agent Stephanie Barnes._

"Why is this making him act like a child at Christmas? Are you two famous in America?"

"No," _Captain James Barnes_ said at the same time as Clint cried "Yes!" 

Maria shrugged. 

"They're very keen on 'the Captain and Agent Barnes' at SHIELD. These two jokers are the only ones who seemed to know they had first names too." 

"Wait," Clint said again, pieces he'd never have been able to connect before finally falling into place.

"Fury said the Russians got there first. You said they were protecting the serum. Is Scherer some kind of code for Erskine? Did Lukin find your ship before Stark's guys, is that what that was? So SHIELD turned it into a Cold War/Hot War thing to make sure they got one of you in the deal? So that the Russians wouldn't end up with some kind of super-Red Army?"

"This is much more the speed we're looking for," Stark approved. "Keep this up, Clintern; you might make Junior Agent yet." 

"I still don't understand how you decided this was a team," Maria- _Stephanie_ complained.

Clint looked at the young man fondly watching his wife bicker with his best friend's son. It was impossible to reconcile the Captain's look of perfect contentment with his new and bitter awareness of what they'd been through to get to this point. 

"He split you up," he said to Maria. To Stephanie. To _his friend and teacher, Stephanie Barnes._

"Yeah," she said drily. "I remember, Clint."

"I've changed my mind," he said. "You should definitely have shot him." 

"I think so too," Tasha pouted slightly. "But Yasha said no more hiding and no more running means no seeking vengeance against prominent members of the international intelligence community."

She didn't sound convinced at all. Clint grinned.

"Will you still call him that?" 

"Of course," she said scornfully. "Otherwise we'll be Natalia and James, recently of the USSR."

The Captain shook his head regretfully.

"That doesn't rhyme at all, pal."

Clint considered shooting Stephanie a wounded look, but James Barnes had now called him 'pal.' Tasha took his hand. 

"Maybe you should put the mask back on when Clint's around," she suggested. "He's usually a lot more impressive than this."

"Never again," Stephanie insisted with real vindictiveness. Her husband slipped his arm around her in a kind of discreet sideways cuddle. "Never ever, Tasha. Sorry, honey, you're gonna have to handle your guy being a bit slow sometimes."

"It's too late anyway," Clint beamed. "Now I know I can never not know again that _the Winter Soldier_ is  _James Barnes,_ which means you two are now my four favourite people in spec-ops history."

"At least you're consistent," Tony said wryly. "Not to make a thing of this, but are apartments in Brooklyn so small that the problem is we're actually not going to fit, or do you guys just like standing in hallways?" 

"You've been in this apartment more than we have in the last however-long," Barnes objected, but he and Stephanie stepped back together so that the others could come in.

Tasha rolled her eyes when Clint hesitated on the threshold. She gave his shoulders a shove that sent him stumbling into the cosy-looking common space. Clint grinned to himself at the vase of lilies on the kitchen table, but before he could say a word all other thoughts were muted by the sight of a certain metallic disc leaning as casually as anything against a chair.

"Can I guess that's not a replica?"

Stephanie tilted her head at her husband, who nodded in response to the unspoken question. James Barnes picked the shield up one-handed, which was the only way to do it properly.

"Here," he said with a challenging kind of grin, and threw it across the room as easily as if it had been made of cardboard. Clint remembered how basic motor skills worked in time to catch it, shivering at the feel of the shield in his hand- or at the knowledge that he was holding  _the_ shield, in  _the_ apartment, with  _the_ James and Stephanie Barnes watching him with amused, indulgent expressions as they held hands like giddy newlyweds. Tasha clapped obligingly; Tony rolled his eyes with a smile that was much more happy than mocking.

"Go on," Stephanie suggested. "Show your girl how it's done." 

When the Captain nodded encouragingly, Clint adjusted the shield on his arm the way Stephanie had shown him close on two years earlier. 

"There," he said, striking as much of a pose as he dared considering the people watching. "What do you think?"

"I think it is ridiculous that they sent sharpshooters into World War II with a shield," Natasha said tartly. "And I think it's not at all surprising that _these two_ managed to make it even more ridiculous by _sharing_ that shield between them." 

She grinned at Clint's wounded expression. 

"I also think you look very handsome, mili moy, but I thought that before, too." 

"Oh," Clint smiled."Awesome."

Stephanie Barnes, who was most emphatically not a widow, clung to her husband's arm as she laughed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, so, a kind of sketchy Irish Catholic Cold War Winter Soldier AAU (ICCWWSAAU)! mostly fluffy but kind of weirdly sinister I feel.  
> next time: the mostly sinister and yet weirdly fluffy Schmidt Steals Steph; James Goes to Get Her AAU (SSSJGGHAAU). these are not very efficient acronyms.


	6. Question Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a thought, which has become a question: would anyone care for a prequel/co-quel companion thing to this, which would be the S&J perspectives? I'm not going to get to do Winter Soldier any other way, I don't think, and I did work out a lot more of their backstory than made it into Clint's point of view. Here are some bits so you can see whether you'd like to have the rest or just, you know, fill it in on your own the way Clint will have had to.  
> I figure I would do this concurrently to the second half of mad art thou in recounting, or maybe right after.  
> If it seems like something people want, I mean.  
> ??

“If we’re doing this I want to start again. Leave Stephanie out of this. Your guys can make that happen, right?”

“I don’t think there’s anything SHIELD wouldn’t do to get you on board with this. Stevie, they’d send you to Argentina for immersion training if you said you wanted to be South American this time around.”

“Call her Maria Stevens. I don’t care where you say she’s from, as long as it's not here.”

“Consider it done.”

He hesitated, watching her with the irrepressible curiosity that made him look so unbearably like his father. His recently deceased, still-lamented father, who looked like a stranger in the photographs they’d shown her when she’d asked.

“What, Tony?”

“Can I ask why?”

She didn’t owe anyone an explanation, she knew that- they were asking for her help, and they could just do what she asked or go without- but it wasn’t Tony’s fault he was the last she had of anyone she’d ever cared about, or that they both knew perfectly well that he could never be what she needed from either of the men whose names he bore like the cross it probably was. No wonder he went by Tony, Steph thought, and hated “Mr. Stark.” She hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask how he felt about his middle name. Maybe he would understand, after all.

“Agent Barnes was- I mean. I'm not- I can't be that without him. She went down with the Captain; they should come back together, or not at all.”

He’d _promised_ he would find her. Goddamn liar had sworn practically with his last breath that they would be together, and where the hell was he? They couldn’t even tell her that.

Tony glanced away awkwardly as Stephanie fought tears for what felt like the millionth time in the poor man’s presence. She blinked angrily, swiping at her face, and decided, finally, that going back to war, even if it was a Cold War, sounded good. And it couldn’t be _that_ cold a war considering that what they wanted her to do was pick up her rifle and head out again. It had to be better than marking time in the mausoleum of an apartment that didn’t feel like it could be hers without her husband.

“I’m in.”

If nothing else, she thought, direct confrontation with the Reds would probably be a quicker way home than just waiting for the god-damned clock to stop.

“Got nothing better to do, anyway.”

* * *

 "I don't know," he whispered. He sounded much younger than she remembered. "I don't know any of that." 

This was really not how Stephanie had thought their first direct encounter would play out.

"Okay," she said cautiously. "Well. Do you know why you decided to come surprise a girl you barely know in her hotel room instead of going back to wherever it is they take you when you don't have your sights on me?" 

His flinch turned into a shudder that shook his whole frame. Red Room, Stephanie remembered vaguely, and felt like the worst kind of cold-hearted scum before she remembered that this guy was meant to be her enemy, and when he was less off his head was pretty damn good at acting like it. 

"I'm sorry," she said anyway. "That was cruel. I just mean- what are you doing here, hon?" 

He stiffened as she froze, but neither of them said anything about the endearment that slipped out unexpectedly. 

"I don't know," he muttered again, sounding disgusted with himself. He looked up, probably right into her eyes, not that she could tell. 

"I just wanted to see you." 

He really was the only person on either side of this damn circus, Stephanie thought again, who knew how to catch her wrong-footed pretty much every time they tangled. If this was a Soviet trick, it was either brilliant or insane. Maybe both- in Steph's limited experience they were pretty good at walking that particular line.

"Yeah? You think you could lose the cheaters so I can see you too?" 

If she was honest- and she did try to be- she really hadn't expected him to take them off at once. 

* * *

 "Yasha?" 

"Natashen'ka. Did they hurt you?" 

She looked confused, but shook her head. There had been someone else, he thought. As well as Tasha? Instead of her. He tried to think about her face, but a hazy memory of soft blonde curls crashed against the more recent picture of a tight, dark twist, and he had to give up before he started screaming. Again? It was so hard to tell, like this. He wished he could remember her name. 

"Mariya," he tried, closing his eyes. It wasn't right, he knew. But maybe it wasn't wrong- the agonized shrieking that was his constant headache on days like this seemed to ease into a dull scream.

Anya, he thought. Stefaniya.

He'd ask Natasha when he woke. If he ever woke. Sometimes he thought this was the dream, and one day, somehow, he'd solve the puzzle and win the right to claw his way back into wakefulness. 

* * *

"Stephanie," he choked. "What the hell is this nightmare?" 

She looked at him helplessly, tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. There was no need for her to tell him she'd been asking herself the same question, and for much longer. 

 


End file.
